


Touched

by brownbot5k



Series: Pretty Girls with Good Manners [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Don't Ask Don't Tell, F/M, Flirting, Hand & Finger Kink, Other, Touch-Starved, Trans Female Character, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27446464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brownbot5k/pseuds/brownbot5k
Summary: Grace is a quiet loner, closeted at work, but her new coworker is getting to her.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: Pretty Girls with Good Manners [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2005243
Kudos: 7





	Touched

Most people give Grey a wide berth, like they’re afraid of her. So she knows the moment Bob starts liking her: it’s when he starts touching her.  
  
It’s Thanksgiving, Bob’s invited her to dinner because he’s sad and lonely, and Grey’s put herself to work mashing potatoes because it’s something she feels semi-confident she can make on her own and she’s uncomfortable letting Bob make everything. There’s a soothing repetition to it, a comforting burn in her forearms, and that’s when she catches Bob watching her.  
  
She pauses, and Bob misconstrues the reason.  
  
“Here, I’ll take it, give your arms a break.”  
  
He reaches for the bowl, and when Grey passes it, their hands bump. Bob doesn’t seem to notice.  
  
Grey does.  
  
After the holiday, he starts brushing against her in the hall. Then the touches become intentional—mostly a light tap to her arm or shoulder to punctuate a remark. They don’t feel intrusive, like Penn’s shoulder-punches. These feel friendly, joking. They feel… good.  
  
One day, when Bob is pulled away in mid-word, his hand trails across Grey’s shoulder, down her arm, and it starts feeling too good, enough that Grey notices.  
  
Larkin notices too. She gives Grey a glance over her shades and Grey avoids her eyes.  
  
Later, while they’re eating their lunch on the back of her car, Larkin remarks, “He’s handsy with you. Do you mind?”  
  
Grey thinks about it, shakes her head, and Larkin relaxes.  
  
“Good. We don’t need another Penn.” She sinks her teeth into a burger—from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, she gives up her diet. “Do you think he’s flirting with you?”  
  
Grey has to clear her throat and drink some water. “It doesn’t matter.”  
  
Even if he is (which Grey doubts) and even if he likes women like her (which she doubts even more), they’re partners, counterparts. It’s not like Larkin and Pritchard, who are usually in different sectors on different shifts, working different jobs. Bob and Grey share all of it; their fraternization would be the worst kind. Impossible.  
  
“It’ll pass,” Grey says to Larkin. “Always does.”  
  
Grey could grovel to Diaz and request Bob a transfer. That’s what Bob was trying to get, originally. But that was before September 11th, before the workplace turned on him, and he hasn’t brought it up since. They’ve hit their stride, found how they work together, and it’s good. Grey is loath to return to the revolving door of temp comboys, but it’s not just that. She likes Bob. She doesn’t want him to leave… or stop. As long as they don’t discuss his wandering hands, as long as it’s in the gray zone of propriety and she doesn’t react, it can continue.  
  
And Bob is careful. He keeps his hands to himself in front of management and fizzies—and Larkin too, after that first time. He sticks with more deniable things—more talking with his hands, leaning on Grey when reaching for something, the occasional hand on her shoulder.  
  
Coming close to Christmas, they’re going over paperwork together, Bob’s hand warm on her arm, when a manager goes by. Bob pulls away, busying himself with shuffling papers, and that’s when Grey realizes that Bob isn’t just being friendly. Friendly men don’t worry about touching someone in front of management. Flirting men do.  
  
The thought makes her burn, and now nothing gets her attention like Bob’s hands. They’re beautiful hands—soft and graceful, with tapered fingers that belong to a concert pianist or the angels in Renaissance paintings. Grey has heard some people talk with their hands; Bob dances with his.  
  
They keep dancing around it, keeping it in the unspoken. Bob keeps touching her—brazen now, arm, shoulder, slipping to her low back if no one’s watching—and Grey keeps letting him, keeps not reacting, even though she knows it’s a bad idea. But it’s been a long time. It’s hard not to want.  
  
One night after a rough shift, Grey dreams of Bob’s hands all over her, running up her shirt and down her pants, sliding inside her. She dreams of Bob’s wicked smile and velvet voice (“So, am I getting to you?”) and wakes up panting, shorts wet and clinging to her thighs.  
  
That hasn’t happened since the accident. She’s relieved enough about the healing that she almost isn’t embarrassed. She changes her clothes and the sheets, throws everything into the laundry basket, and tells herself that enough is enough. Come morning shift, she’ll take Bob aside and tell him to stop. It’ll be an awkward, unpleasant conversation, and things won’t be the same afterward, but it’s fine. What matters is the job, keeping her mind on it, even if it means Bob stops touching her.  
  
She tosses and turns all night, even sleeps through her morning alarm, which never happens. She misses her morning run and comes on shift muzzy and irritable from the lack of exercise.  
  
When she arrives at her office, though, Bob is there with coffee. He must be on his second cup; he’s unusually cheerful and lively for the hour, and their hands brush when he passes Grey’s mug to her.  
  
“Rough night, Grace?” he asks.  
  
Grey opens her mouth to tell him. Sighs.  
  
“Yes,” she says.  
  
And that’s the closest she gets.


End file.
